Posts by Midget-Sasquatch

70

And the Word was with God

by Narkissos in

no this is not meant to be another trinity thread.

rather another shamelessly speculative / philosophical one.

one good thing with the latter: they are usually much shorter.. so we often discuss how the logos was or wasn't "god/god/divine" etc.

Midget-Sasquatch

Kinda like the tension caused by holding magnets near each other?

I like that analogy. Usually in nature we see "like dissolves like" (<--- works nicely for unity). The two interacting magnetic fields works neatly here. Could the analogy also be stretched in comparing the two different magnetic poles as being two opposing inclinations within the same being? At least the OT Yahweh matches that description (nice, then nasty, then nice again)

Could it be said that man is an extension of logos as an emanation, thus the words of men are further creations in their own right?

This made me think about the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. That the act of a conscious observer results in one reality being fixed from all of the possible ones. We may be bringing forth a reality then, like a creator-god, of sorts.

Creation is only meaningful as creatio continua for the same reason that theology is meaningful from within.

If the multiverses interpretation of quantum mechanics is right, then this process of creation has been going non-stop for a very long time.

12

JW's and Divorce

by Dimples in

jw
friends

wow, seems like lots of jw's are getting divorced these days.

since i left the jw's 51/2 years ago i know of at least 5 couples that attended the congregation that i went to, who are now divorced.

is this getting more common where you are?

Midget-Sasquatch

What DY said.

70

And the Word was with God

by Narkissos in

no this is not meant to be another trinity thread.

rather another shamelessly speculative / philosophical one.

one good thing with the latter: they are usually much shorter.. so we often discuss how the logos was or wasn't "god/god/divine" etc.

Midget-Sasquatch

Narkissos

What can I say about me plugging Origen, he may be very old but his thoughts make more intuitive sense to me than does the trinity. I don't see how an antagonistic approach would foster union between God and the Logos.

Unless from a trinitarian stance: Antagonism is used to create and maintain a separateness of the Logos from the Godhead (of which it was initially a part) A necessary step for that emanation of the godhead, on its way to incarnation and then fully experiencing the antagonism of the human will to the will of the divine (e.g. natural sexual desires and other trappings of this material existence)

70

And the Word was with God

by Narkissos in

no this is not meant to be another trinity thread.

rather another shamelessly speculative / philosophical one.

one good thing with the latter: they are usually much shorter.. so we often discuss how the logos was or wasn't "god/god/divine" etc.

Midget-Sasquatch

I'm going to spin off of Narkissos and Origen....and throw in some gnostic overtones to add some heretical variety:

God is found by "the face to face", or more specifically, the divinity of the Logos was brought out by the intimate relationship that it sought with God. In the interacting, it became identical to God in nature. It seems that a surer way for good, just or godly (if you will) things to occur in our material sphere is for individuals to do them towards each other, and actively move towards doing them, rather than passively waiting on the side for god to show up and make it all better. There may also be the nifty possibility of simutaneuosly refining the latent divinity (if any) within ourselves in that process.

369

Why naturalism is irrational

by Shining One in

irrational naturalism (#201) .

by henry morris, ph.d. .

abstract .

Midget-Sasquatch

That was a good point about the subtractive observation being not discernibly better or worse than direct observation. I agree, but I don't think that in any way bolsters an argument for disbelief in God or a spirit realm. I think it has the opposite effect.

I agree. It doesn't favour the materialists. I also don't see it favouring the spiritualists. Thats why I find myself in the mindscape of agnosticism.

That's actually been my point the entire time. If our entire understanding of reality is based on perceptions, what possible basis could someone have for claiming my unfalsifiable perceptions are delusional?

I'm with you in principle on that point. I don't think that they can do that for sure. If they're going to work from a mental paradigm that excludes something, they'll never perceive it.

But from my own experiences (more correctly ------> lack of mystical experiences), I'm just more inclined to believe that the purely materialists have it right. I'd like a personal mystical experience. I'd probably just be stuck in a conundrum with that too. Was it real or am I delusional?

369

Why naturalism is irrational

by Shining One in

irrational naturalism (#201) .

by henry morris, ph.d. .

abstract .

Midget-Sasquatch

Cygnus has a good point. Isn't reality for all of us essentially in our minds?

We interpret the perception of what they are doing by the effects created,
we cannot see them. This is an example of subtractive observation only,
determination of cause by observed effect is not observation of cause.

Once you are done having fun with that, imagine that I say they are just
metaphorical constructs we use for interpretting observed phenomenon in
physical reality that we assign labels to so we can pretend they are real
in terms of Science.

Just how much more direct are our own perceptions really? In a sense, isn't
everything that we "perceive" a construction from effects? The object that we
"see" in front of us is a result of photons that reflected off of it and then
shone onto our retina (the image is now upside down), was converted to neural
impulses and then those impulses are processed in the visual cortex so that the
brain constructs a rightside up representation of the object. Is there a crucial
difference then when we resort to using artificial instrumentation and subtractive
observations? I wouldn't hold our own senses as being inherently superior
to artificial ones in principle. So I don't have a strong reason to give greater value
to the perceptions of a mystic vs the instruments trained on his/her brain by doctors
studying that experience.

369

Why naturalism is irrational

by Shining One in

irrational naturalism (#201) .

by henry morris, ph.d. .

abstract .

Midget-Sasquatch

What the hell is a force? It is invisible, its presence can only be subtractively assessed from its impacts on tangible reality, but science has no problem accepting its existence. Apart from its effects, it can ONLY be metaphorically described but is considered real.

The nuclear force has no physical substance, but exists. Gravity has no physical substance, but exists.

Check up on bosons. They are particle carriers of force. Leolaia did mention mesons, but I'm not sure if you caught that. A demonstrabley real example of a boson would be the photon, which is the particle carrier of the EM force. (You'd be surprised what you can learn from the X-Men comics. ). I believe that another name for the carrier particle for the strong nuclear force is the gluon. But "gravitons" as far as I know haven't been verified.

I side with the materialists on, what to me is, an inescapable point. That if the activity in the mystic's brain is genuinely due to something external, it'll have to have some material basis for interaction.
But maybe the following take can be used in your favour, or maybe you'll just want to distance yourself from me:
Would "spooky action at a distance" be a feasible mechanism for mystical experiences?
Quantum entanglement is real, but have physicists figured out how "the information" is transmitted between two particles? (and at faster than the speed of light to boot!) What if the neurochemical impulses that mystics perceive as another facet of reality are due to some conglomeration of "spooky actions at a distance" between their neurons and ___________ ?

I'm on a sugar/happy chemical high from the double decadent chocolate snack(s) I just had. I recommend it.

34

Chasing rainbows - how I got engaged in Paris

by Abaddon in

jw
friends

i took kate, my girlfriend of between the last five and ten years (depending how you define girlfriend) to paris this weekend and proposed.

i had a couple of scenarios mapped out, but was playing it by ear as to the right moment.. on saturday night when we sat down to eat at a restaurant the waiter asked me if i "had got engaged to the lady yet", and then said "if not, i will".

i'm sure he does it to every foreign couple where the women isn't wearing a ring but i could not believe it that one .

Midget-Sasquatch

Congratulations Abbadon!

27

You had BETTER pioneer when you get out of high school

by Bonnie_Clyde in

we weren't at the circuit assembly this weekend but a friend told us the circuit overseer made this very strong comment.

didn't even say anything about learning a trade.

Midget-Sasquatch

I can't recall any of those sisters marrying 'up' and I think it is a bit of an insult to say that they lived that way to find a mate! Most of my friends were intelligent and if they were going to be Witnesses, they would be damn good Witnesses!

There are even a few exceptions here in Canada. My sister is one. She is definitely not pioneering to find a hubby, or to make herself feel more special, or to gain more status in the congregation. She genuinely is doing it because she wants to give her best to God. And she does this with a language disability. If only she would give all that energy to a cause that actually helped people! She'd surely put my cold blooded self to shame.

Due to fathers bucking for "privileges" they WILL sacrifice their children for the Watchtower false god.

I can vouch for that. It had to do with school systems and it was questioned by a new member of the elder body. Sort of a long story, but my pop was torn between us and his position as ministerial servant. He asked us to comply so that he could keep it. Even if that would have messed us up scholastically.

16

"Brave New World" -- have you read it?

by AlmostAtheist in

jw
friends

i've heard alot about this book, but i've never read it.

today we happened upon a yard sale and there it was!

so i grabbed it.. i can't put the thing down.

Midget-Sasquatch

I read it in highschool english class and loved it. I too felt for "the savage" in the end. I think 1984 parallels the jdubs much more closely with that world's strictness with sexuality, crazy manipulation of information, evoking a seige mentality (by the supposed war), and demanding loyalty.

IMHO, Brave New World is a world that takes an opposite approach. It lets people loose on sex and on physical pleasures so that they'd be easily caught up in it, even addicted to it. i.e. Soma. Being hooked on those things, one is less inclined to reflect on other matters. That makes them less informed and easier to be controlled by those in positions of power. They'd rather have their "feelies" than reflect on the unfairness of the caste system to the monkey boy in the elevator. Yeah I'm taking that part of the novel personally.